স্বাভিমান:SWABHIMAN

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The world economic and political order is in great turmoil.
The US economic and geo-political world hegemony is based on two pillars.
The dollar, for all its faults and weaknesses, is the pivot of the entire
global system of currencies, stocks, bonds, derivatives and investments of
all kinds. Along with it, the military might for strategic geo-political
control is another pillar.

The third currency war which has been started from 2010
post-subprime crisis is taking new dimensions. In 1997 the US trade deficit
with China was less than $50 billion. Then the deficit grew steadily, and
in the space of three years, from 2003 to 2006, it exploded from $124
billion to $234 billion. This period, beginning in 2003, marks the
intensification of concern about the US-China bilateral trade relationship
and the role of the dollar-yuan exchange rate in that relationship.

China's internal deflation is exported to the United States
through the currency exchange rate and ends up threatening deflation in the
United States. This begins with the Chinese policy decision to peg the
exchange rate between the yuan and the dollar.

This meant that as the Fed printed dollars and those dollars
ended up in China to purchase goods, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) had
to print yuan to soak up the surplus. In effect, China had outsourced its
monetary policy to the Fed, and as the Fed printed more, the PBOC also printed
more in order to maintain the pegged exchange rate. The Chinese acquired
massive quantities of US Treasury obligations as their trade surplus with
the United States persisted and grew.

Chinese leaders have begun to make it easier to trade the
yuan in foreign exchange markets. On March 23, 2015, China backed the
Renminbi Trading Hub for the Americans. That makes it easier for North
American companies to conduct yuan transactions in Canadian banks. China
opened up similar trading hubs in Singapore and London. (Source:
"Canada Aims to Boost Deals in China Currency", The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2015.)

The process of absorbing all the surplus dollars entering
the Chinese economy, especially after 2002, produced a number of unintended
consequences. The first problem was that the PBOC did not just take the
surplus dollars, but rather purchased them with newly printed yuan. By
early 2011, Reuters estimated that total Chinese foreign reserves in all
currencies were approximately $2.85 trillion, with about $950 billion of
that invested in US government obligations of one kind or another. The
United States and China were locked in a trillion-dollar financial embrace,
essentially a monetary powder keg that could be detonated by either side if
the currency wars spiralled out of control.

While the Russian ruble is in no position to replace the
dollar in international reserves, it could become a regional reserve and
trade currency for Russian and Central Asian gas suppliers and Eastern
European gas customers, dislodging the dollar to that extent at least.
Energy is a wedge used to forge a regional economic bloc with a regional
reserve currency, the ruble. Russia successfully maintained its regional
hegemony by establishing Gazprom's near monopoly on natural gas supplies to
Europe through pipelines transiting Ukraine and Belarus. Europe and US
backed company Nabucco 's attempt to circumvent these pipelines in a way
that neither uses Russian natural gas nor passes through Russian territory
has been foiled. Nabucco tried to source its gas initially in Azerbaijan
and later Kazakhstan and Iraq and traversed to Turkey on its way to Europe.
Russia also speaks openly of the dethroning of the dollar as the dominant
reserve currency.

Russia released its official "National Security
Strategy of the Russian Federation up to 2020," an overview of the
global strategic opportunities and challenges confronting Russia. In
addition to the usual analysis of weapons systems and alliances, the
strategy draws the link between energy and national security and considers
the global financial crisis, currency wars, supply chain disruptions and
struggles for other natural resources, including water. The strategy does
not rule out the use of military force to resolve any of these finance- or
resource-related struggles.

For now, it is enough to say that Russia has warned the
world of the coming blue fuel wars in both words and deeds.

While all currencies by definition represent some store of
value, the dollar is different. It is a store of economic value in a nation
whose moral values are historically exceptional and therefore a light to
the world. The debasement of the dollar cannot proceed without the
debasement of those values and that exceptionalism.

In global scenario, table has already turned, and US, it
seems, is oblivious of its containment. US is desperately flexing its
muscle and inciting war hysteria with pernicious show of its war machine,
when both US job market and wages are plummeting. When Turkey strikes a
missile deal with Russia, US war machines are displayed in Sweden under
NATO umbrella fearing deep fissures within NATO camp. When US fails to
compel North Korean rulers to kowtow, it brazenly applies sanction and
shows South Korean missile. Israel, the pivot of US Arab domination, has
been taken aback by the recent non-violent resistance by tens of thousands
of Palestanians mobilised in response to Israeli closure of old city. The
Palestenian youths forced open a gate in the Israeli separation wall. It's
a sign of rejuvenation of Palestanian movement. New form of grassroots
movement is emerging all over the world. And it's a sign of warning to the
imperialists of all hues.

The US is threatening to cancel nuclear agreement with Iran,
but other European signatories are averse to Trump's rhetoric. US failed to
tame North Korea despite repeated threatening of attack on Korean nuclear
installations. Through Russia's successful intervention, the US agenda to
dislodge Assad regime has failed. US show of its military might could not
dissuade China from its overwhelming claim on South China Sea. The
strategic interest of US in East Asia and Afganistan is getting jeopardised
by China's ever-increasing influence in East Asia through its One Belt One
Road (OBOR) project. The diffusion of Doklam crisis is in conformity with
the toning down of India's opposition to China's OBOR project.

One must comprehend where this disorder in world
geo-politics will lead. In view of the world capitalist economic crisis
which is showing no sign of overall revival post-subprime crisis, the
imperialist conflict for strategic control will deepen. If it triggers into
a full-fledged war, it will not last long with large-scale human and
natural catastrophe due to the use of nuclear arsenals which many countries
now posses.

So, while aligning with world-wide anti-war campaign and
people's movement, progressives in India must build popular pressure for
negotiation and dialogue with the neighbouring countries especially China
and Pakistan to resolve all vexed issues.

Throwing a Russian resources assault, a Chinese currency
assault and an Iranian military assault at United States interests in a
near simultaneous affront would produce predictable effects in the
hair-trigger world of capital markets. Markets would experience the financial
equivalent of a stroke.

The global economy in double whammy: the capital surplus
absorption problem due to scarcity of profitable destination for investment
and investment problem due to scarcity of fund of highly indebted banks.
Labour's earnings plummeted due to the widespread trend towards investment
in asset values instead of production and manufacturing, the asset value
also took a plunge. The gap between earnings and consumer spending is being
tried to cover by the rise of credit card industry and increasing
indebtedness.

The Japanese boom of the 1980s ended with a collapse of the
stock market and plunging stock prices and is still ongoing. To boost
investment, Japanese banks are maintaining near zero percent interest
rates. Investment in India for bullet train etc is an opportunity for the
Japanese. But this model of development will further screw the Indian
people. Indian banks are reeling under crisis due to bad loans and NPA, and
now expecting bailout package from Govt. with common Indian taxpayers'
money.

Despite the appearance of economic dynamism in China today,
sudden collapse is entirely possible and could be caused by things such as
inflation, rising unemployment, ethnic tensions or a burst of housing
bubble. Prolonged and widespread unemployment is potentially destabilising
in China.

In the midst of deep global economic crisis, India cannot
achieve export led growth as China achieved at the initial phase of
neo-liberalism in the eighties. The SBI report said, "GDP growth
during the second quarter of the current fiscal is expected to remain below
6 percent due to downward trend in export and muted growth in the
agricultural sector. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the first
quarter had fallen to 5.7 percent". Though US imports of textile and
apparels have grown 30 percent between April and July, Indian export to US
remained at the same level. The slowdown in demand has only aggravated the
situation. The Indian economy is facing the cliff from where its downward
march would continue. As the economy contracts the news came of the massive
growth in net worth of the top 100 billionaires growing by 26% and who else
to top the chart but Mukesh Ambani whose net worth increased by a massive
67%. What people are witnessing is a jobless economic growth with
tremendous growth of capitalists.

The author of Capital in Twenty-first Century, Thomas Picketty, and his colleague Lucas Chancel at the
World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics, have provided the numbers
as far as incomes are concerned in their working paper "Indian Income
Inequality, 1922-2014". (Indian income inequality, 1922-2014 : From British Raj to
Billionaire Raj? :
Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty : July, 2017)

This report states "our results shed light on a
particularly striking characteristic of Indian growth over the past three
decades: the very moderate rise of the "middle class"—at least
defined as individuals above median income and below the top 10% earners.
Incomes of the middle 40% grew at 102% over the 1980-2014 period. Compared
to industrialized countries' growth rates for this group, the figure is
impressive. In the Indian context however, the middle 40% were notably
below average growth (187%). Since 1980, the middle 40% group in India
captured a much smaller share of total growth (25%) than its counterparts
did in China or Europe (more than 40%) or even the USA (33%). This result
should help us better characterize what has been termed as the rise of
India's middle class".

In this mirage of growth and despair the opportunity arises
from the revolutionary proletarian to give the clarion call for
redistribution of wealth through nationalisation, state intervention and
workers’ participation.

The uneven development is ingrained in capitalism especially
at its latest stage of imperialism. But the capitalism has the dynamic
capacity to annihilate the space with time. It can dismantle all
geographical barriers to bring sundry nations under its overwhelming
control. Geographical diversity is not anathema to capitalism, rather it is
necessary for its sustainability. Barring few African countries, every part
of the world has come under its fold. Capitalist relations of production
are in the driving seat when all other social relations have been remoulded
and co-opted under its command. When one talks about uneven development,
one must keep an eye on changing geographical landscape due to capitalist
restructuring and huge investment in assets. The rising Washington DC with
investment in social and physical infrastructure and contrasting sorry
state of affairs of once industrialised Pennsylvania with deserted
factories, dilapidated roads and bridges and unemployed workers speak
volumes about the capitalist restructuring. Who could have imagined that
Bengalore will develop as world's IT hub and Mumbai will take its present
look with high rise buildings. The investment of capital in assets is
displacing the toiling masses from its habitat and workplace. Capitalist
accumulation through displacement or primitive accumulation already displaced
crores of people from Indian agriculture as well as from urban and
semi-urban areas. The distress situation of agriculture due to lack of
Government investment and the presence of blood-sucking corporates in
agri-business, a huge number of migrating contractual labourers have been
created. On the one end, the organised labour has been dismantled through
capitalist neo-liberal restructuring and on the other hand a large
vulnerable proletariat or precariat is being created. In agricultural
sector, a new class of landlord capitalist and peasant capitalist have
emerged, the mid-peasant is almost extinct, and the number of agricultural
wage labourers has crossed the threshold to influence the change of
relation of production to capitalist one. But all the agricultural classes
have a score to settle with global corporate sharks that are in control of
labour process, surplus accumulation and input and output side of
production.

This new proletarianisation and precatrianisation has also
been changing the contours of all kinds of identity movements. The support
base of the dalit movements solely driven by identity rights without
focusing on the working class within the identities is dwindling, when
section of upper strata being co-opted in the overall corporate interest is
siding with the ruling class. When there is loss of jobs of muslims and
lower castes Hindus who cart cattle, labour in tanneries and make shoes,
bags and belts including for big name brands such as Zara and Clarks, the
Dalit middlemen who are in supply chain are with ruling class. The timings
of banning and lynching in the name of cow nationalism are in sync with
claim of big exporters that that they have enough leather as they source
hides widely, including from abroad. However, the emergence of new Dalit
movement which is highlighting the rights of Dalit workers is noticeable.

Without organising this working class, there cannot be any
effective resistance movement against corporate onslaught. There are
structural barriers to achieve the unity of working class. These working
classes are disorganised and compartmentalised with their diverse immediate
interest. But there is also a commonality in their desire of wage-hike and
social security. They are also divided on caste-identity fault lines. The agenda
of identity rights and opposition of caste oppression needs to be
incorporated within the working-class struggle with strenuous and
continuous pedagogic efforts. The socio-economic gap between the mental
working class predominantly comprising of upper-castes and the manual
working class is huge in Indian reality and this needs to be addressed
through a simultaneous cultural movement too.

The resistance movement against land grabbing and eviction
or the movement against the capitalist accumulation by displacement as
David Harvey termed it is not enough to build a revolutionary struggle
against corporate onslaught. If progressives fail to build a revolutionary
working-class movement, the fascist forces are bound to raise their ugly
face. When capitalism is in crisis and the working class is in disarray,
the fascist forces are bound to rise.

Due to jobless growth and dismantling of state-guaranteed
social security, the exponentially rising parliamentary curve of Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) has been momentarily halted. In the recent by-elections
and very recently held Gujarat Assembly elections, the downward trend of
the curve is also visible. But there is no scope for complacency, the
revolutionary popular upsurge under the leadership of working class can
only defeat fascism effectively. One must bear in mind that the fascist
forces backed by RSS have taken two-pronged strategy for fascist take over.
One is overt fascist mass movement on the issue of Hindutwa—illegal
migrants, infiltration, refugee etc and other is more insidious nature of
changing the character of democratic institutions through infiltration of
fascist forces. On the second front, RSS has achieved substantial success.
No doubt the Supreme Court is still giving citizens some respite by pronouncing
democratic judgement on Privacy issue, Rohingiya issue etc. But this will
not be sustainable, if BJP once again reign in power post 2019-election.

The revolutionary forces should rise to the occasion when
Indian economy is in deep crisis, to build the working class revolutionary
core with a view to develop united anti-fascist struggle of all social and
political anti-BJP democratic forces.

The two things that capitalism exploits are the labour and
nature for profit and accumulation. The human being has been evolved from
and is organically linked with nature and thus human body is the metabolic
unity of labour and nature. The separation between natural, inorganic
conditions of human existence and living & active humanity is a
separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labour
and capital. In the capitalist social relations of production, the
metabolic rift between labour and nature occurs and capitalists control the
labour process to exploit both labour and nature and thus destroy the
balance of nature. The capitalist carbon economy and unbridled exploration
of natural wealth has already destroyed the nature to such an extent that
it is beyond the reach under the capitalist profit-motive to repair the
damage and rejuvenate nature.

The genius of capitalism's Cheap Nature strategy was to
represent time as linear, space as flat, and nature as external.
Recognising capital accumulation as both objective process and subjective
project, Marx's value thinking offers a promising way to comprehend the
inner connection between accumulation, biophysical change, and modernity as
a whole. So, to save earth and the humanity from ecological disaster,
people must have a project to go beyond capitalism.

The global warming, holes in Ozone layer and rise in sea
water level have posed disastrous consequences to the existence of human
civilisation. The first world or industrial north, with about 25 percent of
the world's population and owning about 86 percent of the world's industry,
consumes 80 percent of world energy. The US, with around 5 percent of world
population, has been estimated to consume 20 percent of the world's
non-renewal energy resources. The US gobbles up a quarter of the world's
energy supplies, about as much energy as used by entire third world. Under
the pressure of global opinion, global leaders reached an agreement known
as Kyoto Protocol to address ecological issues. But industrial north
especially the US diluted the obligatory provisions of Kyoto Protocol and
designed a new agreement known as Paris Agreement with voluntary
provisions. Now President Trump is threatening to withdraw from Paris
agreement too. The people's struggle against capitalist development and for
sustainable development model needs to be launched with a view to march
ahead beyond capitalism, can only save humanity from ecological disaster.

Indian people are bearing the brunt of both global
ecological degradation and the capitalist development model. Many states
and cities are encountering repeated floods and draught. For example, due
to the release of water from the Big Dams, the large landscape of lower
Assam has been inundated with three consecutive floods in this year.

There is a sustained anti-dam movement in various parts of
India including Assam. But the difficulty is that the workers engaged in
the construction and running of Big Dams and ancillary industries are not
averse to its construction due to their immediate livelihood issue. So, it
is necessary to formulate a programme on sustainable development model
along with anti-dam movement.

Arup Baisya

NRC Updating An unprecedented exercise of identifying citizens through updating of the ‘National Register of Citizens (NRC), 1951’ for Assam has been going on over the past two years. The first list of NRC is now out in the public domain. This is done when the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the entire process, had ordered that the first draft of the NRC be published by December 31, 2017 with two crore claims whose scrutiny has been completed and after completing the scrutiny of around 38 lakhs people whose documents were suspect. But the first list contained only 1.9 crore out of total 3.29 crores. NRC authority’s silence in this regard cannot keep wild speculations at bay. Sitting on the fences, Bengali speaking people have every reason to jump the bandwagon of suspecting the bureaucratic motive. Furthermore, when upper Assam recorded about 70% inclusion and predominantly Bengali inhabited Barak Valley recorded about 30% inclusion in the first list, when there are widespread anomalies in the inclusion of members of the same family, one can perceive it as either the manifestation of negligent, chauvinist mentality of the bureaucracy or the absence of any method to their madness.

However, after initial phase of misunderstanding on the purpose of NRC updating initiated by Congress in 2013 and its discontinuation due to widespread protest movement, both religious and linguistic minorities in Assam welcomed it this time when the process restarted in 2015 by BJP government under the monitoring of Supreme Court. They welcomed it to get rid of the harassment being meted out to them in the name of Doubtful voter (D-voter) and sending them to Detention camp after the Supreme Court scrapped the IMDT Act in 2005. In its judgment, delivered on 12 August 2005, in response to a petition seeking its repeal by Sarbananda Sonowal, a former president of AASU, former member of legislative assembly and member of Parliament from the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and currently the chief minister of Assam, a three-judge bench declared the IMDT Act unconstitutional. IMDT was considered as safeguard by the minorities as the act affirmed the onus of proof of foreign nationality on the complainant. But the communal and chauvinist forces who have internalized the belief of the presence of huge infiltrators and refugee in Assam from their pathological hatred against the minorities were taken aback when 3.29 crore of people completed the complex and due procedure of submitting all kinds of NRC forms. The whole rotten edifice of chauvinist politics meticulously built on cock and bull story of infiltration and immigration and on whole lot of wildly guessed figures appears to come crashing down. They are now back to the drawing room and formulating new strategy of political chicanery to polarize the people. This is all the more necessary to sustain the hegemonic rule of the compradors and their bourgeois hangers-on of Assamese “Little Nationalism” when the labour movement in Assam is showing new signs of rejuvenation and revitalization.

The GenesisThe history of identiﬁcation of citizens and sifting out non-citizens goes back to the Assam movement and the Assam Accord. However, it had much deep-rooted concern that had been vexing the people of Assam since the colonial times. The socio-political conditions that emerged in the colonial rule planted a latent fear in the minds of the people of Assam of being swamped by the Bengali-speaking people. As a consequence, Bengali became synonymous to foreigners. British annexed the entire territory of Assam and placed it under the Bengal Presidency. Assam was administered as part of Bengal from 1826 to1873. In 1874, Assam was made a Chief Commissioner's province and three districts of Bengal: Cachar, Sylhet and Goalpara came under the provincial administration of Assam, then in 1905 British incorporated Assam in unit called ‘East Bengal and Assam’ with Dhaka as the capital. When Bengal partition was annulled in 1912, Assam once again ruled as a separate Chief Commissioner’s province that included the predominantly Bengali district of Sylhet and Cachar. Due to the vehement opposition from the leader like Gopinath Bordoloi and the support he secured from Gandhi, Sylhet District excluding Karimganj Sub-Division was conceded to Pakistan through referendum.

The Election Commissioner in 1979 reported the unexpected large increase in the electoral rolls. According to the 1951 census, 56.7 percent of the population was Assamese speaking, in 1961 62.4 percent, and in 1971 61 percent. The Bengalis were 16.5 percent, 18 percent, and 19.7 percent, and the Hindi-speaking population was 3.8 percent, 4.8 percent, and 5.4 percent. The census report does not reveal the linguistic identity of tea garden population separately. Between 1951 and 1961 the population of Assam increased from 8 million to 10.6 million (a 35 percent increase), but the number of Assamese speakers rose from 4.6 million to 6.7 million, a 48.5 percent increase, suggesting the magnitude of language “switching”. In the 1931 census only 1.7 million people reported Assamese as their mother tongue. Between 1961 and 1971 the proportion of Assamese declined for the first time, as the proportion of Bengali speakers increased. This shift, though small, was in a direction that aroused the anxieties of many Assamese. If a large proportion of the Muslim population (24.6 percent of the population in 1971), most of whom are of Bengali origin, declared themselves Bengali, the position of the Assamese and Bengalis could be reversed. The manipulative political stance applied by the Assamese middle class to generate fear-psychosis of losing their identity by being numerically outnumbered by the migrant Bengali speaking people assumed the form of anti-foreigner movement from 1979. The first organized opposition was in the form of twelve-hour general strike called by All Assam Students Union (AASU) on 8th June 1979. AASU demanded “detection, disenfranchisement and deportation” of the foreign nationals; those who had entered the state after 1961 should be expelled from the state and their names were to be expunged from the electoral rolls.

The Class PoliticsThe national political leaderships representing the big bourgeoisie also tried to co-opt the Assamese ‘little nationalism’ the term coined by the eminent Marxist scholar Amalendu Guha, by inciting ethnic sentiment. The Assam movement, according to Amalendu Guha, was a programme led by the Assamese middle class at a conjunctural crisis. According to him, hard pressed by big capital from above and the rising labour and peasant movement from below, the Assamese upper classes are terribly agitated about the economic stagnation. Incapable of competing with big capital, they aspired to monopolise the small industries, petty trade and the profession and services. This diversion of the movement from targeting the big capital by raising issue of development, devolution and democratization of power to anti-Bengali anit-foreigner’s movement gave the Assamese middle class the required space to collaborate with the national bourgeoisie. Hiren Gohain, another renowned left intellectual of Assam agreed with Guha that the main thrust and character of such movements served the interest of the Assamese small bourgeoisie and landlords, and was most likely to profit the big bourgeoisie.

The Assam movement culminated into a memorandum of settlement signed by AASU and the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, and this accord is known as Assam Accord which stipulated the 24th March midnight, 1971 as the cutoff date for identifying citizens and demarcating illegal migrants. With an open chauvinist agenda of Assam movement to denationalise Bengali speaking people, the merciless mass killings of Nelie etc exposed the inherent communal character of the movement which made the religious minorities as the main target of physical attack. The numerically significant, but economically and socially weak religious minorities of lower Assam were always the soft target of the chauvinists since independence to coerce them to opt for Assamese as their mother tongue. Through coercion and through medium of education, majority of the religious minorities use Assamese language in public life. But despite this submission to the coercive process of Assamisation, the Assamese ‘little nationalism’ or chauvinism always treat them with suspicion and with the rise of Hindutwa forces they have once again become the prime target. The recent field study conducted by Diganta Sharma, an Assamese mainstream journalist and published it in a book form revealed the fact that similar treatment was meted out to the Namasudras, the Bengali speaking schedule caste community and they were also physically attacked, their villages torched in mass scale during the Assam movement. However, the Bengali Hindus were mainly targeted as the competitors in the space like services, contracts etc. Some commentators pointed out the land dispute as the reason for conflict in the rural areas. But in my opinion, they have overemphasized the land question because of the fact that the tribals who were instigated to attack their minority neighbours were not land hungry. Rather the feeling of otherness mingled with identity assertion was twisted and turned into hatred against their alien minority Bengali culture. The citizenship question has returned to prominence this time under a changed reality which needs to be taken into consideration while assessing the future implications.

The Migration and The Pacts To resolve the widespread migration across the India-Pakistan border due to communal riots that broke out during partition in 1947, the two prime ministers of India and Pakistan signed an agreement on April 2, 1950 and this is known as Nehru-Liaquat Pact. The Bengali Muslims who crossed border during partition came back to lower Assam on the basis of this pact by which both Governments would ensure complete and equal right of citizenship and security of life and properties to their minorities. Those who came back were predominantly Muslim peasant masses. Many educated and influential Muslim families both from Lower Assam and Barak Valley migrated to Pakistan leaving the vulnerable sections amenable to all kinds of communal and chauvinistic pressures and harassment. Naturally Bengali Hindus who migrated to India did not return and a section of them settled in various pockets of Brahmaputra valley and predominantly in Barak valley.

Another large-scale influx of Bengali refugee occurred during Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Most of these refugees had returned after the creation of Bangladesh and 1972 Indira – Mujib Pact which expired in 1997. Communal and chauvinist forces in Assam are citing illusory figures to fan ethnic passion against the Bengali migrants, both Hindus and Muslims.

The strategy of Sangh Parivar to bring the Assamese and Bengali Hindus in their fold by focusing on infiltration (Bengali Muslims) issue and the bogey of Islamophobia and posturing as the saviour of refugees (Bengali Hindus) is in doldrums. Cutting across political affiliations, all Muslim organizations want that NRC process should be completed in right earnest so that the myth of large scale Muslim infiltration post 1971 is dismantled. Bengali Hindus who saw BJP as the saviour is now getting disillusioned due to the dillydallying tactics of BJP in keeping their electoral promise to provide citizenship rights to refugee Hindus, deletion of D-voter category and dismantling of detention camps. The political and social organizations which emerged from Assam movement as Assamese national formations do not want to lose their support base to BJP and Sangh Parivar by abandoning their core chauvinist appeal to Assamese middle class.

The New TrendsAn interesting phenomenon is now emerging in Assam politics. The left leaning intellectuals like Hiren Gohain who stood firm against the Assam Movement and a section of mainstream left are projecting themselves as the cementing core of all chauvinist forces. Their strategy to isolate BJP and to defeat its communal agenda by taking anti refugee (Bengali Hindu) stance to mobilize chauvinist camps is opportunistic and self-defeating. When BJP’s bid to introduce the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 is communally motivated to incite Bengali Hindu sentiment; those who are taking anti-refugee stance are inciting Assamese ethnic sentiment. The democratic sensibilities demand that the refugee issue must be seen from a humanitarian ground while ensuring the constitutional safeguards for Assamese language and identity in Assam.It must be noted that the protection of equality— equality before law and equal protection of the law—under Article 14 of the Constitution extends to all persons in India, not just citizens. The present moment is signiﬁcant for its coalescence with the changes made in 2003 in the Citizenship Act, 1955, which eliminated citizenship by birth and gave precedence to descent. The Citizenship Act, 1955 was amended in 1986 in the wake of Assam accord to inscribe an exception in the law in recognition of the extraordinary conditions prevailing in Assam. But how a state can be democratic which does not even give recognition to those born in between 1971 to till date whose parents are illegal migrants? So, the conglomeration of forces under the leadership of intellectuals like Hiren Gohain is not upholding the democratic politics that can be pitted against BJP’s reactionary politics. The real existential threat of Assamese nationality is coming from centralization of power in Delhi and neo-liberal onslaught. Assam is losing control over all its revenue earning resources through privatization and monopolization. The state has merely become ‘Glorified Municipality’ and is dependent on the whim of the centre on every matter. In the shrinking job market, the upper strata of both Assamese and Bengali Hindu educated class are now exploring the opportunities to try their fate outside Assam. In the prevailing job opportunities for educated class, it is illusory to claim one linguistic group as competitor to other. A large section of wage labourers has emerged across the communities. The internal migration of wage-labourers to work in the infrastructural sector has increased manifold. The recent incidents of manhandling of these internally migrated Muslim workers by alleging them as Bangladeshis unfolded a new dimension in the Assam’s canvas of ethnic violence. The continuing out-migration from rural areas is creating new areas of settlement in the vicinity of neo-liberal development work and urbanization activities. The state government is getting involved in evicting their core Assamese people to serve the interest of big capital. The diverse social sector workers belonging to all the communities have already upped the ante by launching new spell of movements. So, the emerging objective condition is not conducive for the chauvinist and communal appeal. The most formidable challenge is coming from the Jharkhandi-Adivasi assertion for both identity and tea workers’ rights and the assertion of Bengali Muslims and the Namasudras who were hitherto servile and submissive to chauvinist-communal forces. They together constitute more than 50% of the Assam’s population and the majority of the working class. The Board-room directors of the communal-chauvinist camp is busy ruminating on the ways and means to create fissures through ethnic fault-lines to defeat any unity move within the struggling masses. The successful completion of NRC will seize another weapon of divisive politics from their anti-people munitions. But without an alternative democratic agenda to unite the struggling masses and disorganized working class, the hegemony of communal-chauvinist politics in Assam cannot be defeated. Caught between the two stools and without a democratic alternative, the Assamese middle class will remain supine before the big capital and the Bengali Hindu middle class, in apparent hostility to their Assamese Hindu counterpart, will actually be playing the second fiddle to the politics backed by big capital by their abject surrender to the communal forces.

It is unfortunate that the Assamese intellectual stalwarts like Hiren Gohain and a section of left intellectuals in Assam are playing to the chauvinist gallery and thus the opportunity for a democratic change of Assam’s polity and for the development of a vibrant Assamese nationality is getting missed. Will the revolutionary forces rise to the occasion to offer a democratic alternative to the people of Assam?

Gujrat Election : The old is in deathbed, Is the new kicking for birth pang?

(Editorial, Arunodoy Dec
2017, Translated from Bengali)

The
Media Pundits described it as ánti-incumbency’, we call it ‘negation of
negation’. Why? The Congress ruled the
state till 1995 since the creation of Gujrat state in 1960, barring 18 months of Janata Rule in between. The BJP’s rise after a
long 33 years of congress rule cannot be explicatedsimply
withthe tool of anti-incumbency. Similarly in 2017 election, the speed breakers
which were placed on the path of seemingly unstoppable
march of BJP cannot be explained away by anti-incumbency factor. This year’s assembly election revealed the unity of
opposites of rebellious politics of Jignesh-Alpesh-Hardik especillay Jignesh against
the status quo and the status quoits politics of Congress on one side, and the
unity of opposites of communalism, economic liberalism and Sangh’s illusory construct
of ‘Gujrati Ashmita’ and ‘politics of patriotism’ on the other.

Gujrat is the state which derives its prominence
from trades and various entrepreneurial production centres. Gujrat’s status is also
derived from its linkages with Sindh and Harappan civilization, ancient trades
through seaports. The large-scale institutions based on production and trades
of Milk, Spices, Diamond, leather, garments etc has been developed in the post independence
period. The farmer’s families are connected with the large network of Milk
Co-operatives and similarly various communities are connected with diverse business
institutions. The Congress could sustain their hegemonic rule during the long
period of 1960-1995 by maintaining the linkages with people through the managers
of these institutions and by maintaining a balance in this economic base. The
rift within the congress in 1969 under the leadership of Morarji Desai and
Indira Gandhi created the space for the RSS to make deep inroads within Gujrati
society and large-scale riots broke out in September and October of 1969. In
the backdrop of Navanirman movement in Deccember 1963 against price rise and
corruption, Morarji Desai’s indefinite hunger strike in March, 1975 etc,
Congress’s tally in Gujrat assembly came down to 75 in 1975 election from its
earlier strength of 140 in 167 legislatures of Gujrat assembly. Indira Congress
came back to power in 1980 election after emergency.

The Indian society
started witnessing imbalances in the economy and politics after that phase. The
social turmoil in the name of Mandal and Kamandal and paradigm shift towards
neo-liberal economy reached its zenith through Babri demolition and Monmahan’s
official announcement of reform agenda. The rise of BJP and Sangh Parivar occurred
in this vacuum which was created by the breakdown of economic and social balance
of forces. The people’s negation of status quo was announced in a reactionary path.
BJP Government in Gujrat was formed in 1995 under the leadership of Keshubhai
Patel. In next 22 years, BJP and Sangh Parivar sailed smoothly all along and need
not had to look back. In this election of 2017, Gujrati people sent out another
message of negation which could not reach to its zenith due to the absence of nationwide
democratic political alternative. What were the features of this election?

‘Hardik factor’ or ‘Patidar
Anamat Andolon’ had played a significant role in this election. Patidars were
considered as Sudra caste till 18th century. Patidars were provided
with land through Rayotwari system to enhance British’s revenue earnings and
thus Patidars were converted to landowning peasant community. After the
construction of Railway line in Boroda in 1960, a section of Patidars amassed
wealth through production and export of cotton, tobacco, oil seeds, and some of
the wealthy Patidars migrated abroad. There is one Patidar in every ten Indian
American and those Paridars are famous for their Motel business. Patels became
politically influential force during the Vallabhbhai Patel’s tenure as Deputy
Prime Minister and central Home Minister. The internal inequality and
class-divisions within the Patels also increased significantly. The anger of
unemployed youths who numerically increased leaps and bounds due to jobless
growth model were turned into anti-reservation movement in 1985 with the
conspicuous backing of Sangh Parivar. But the agricultural distress, lack of
public investment, jobless growth since 1990 perturbed the educated and
half-educated working class and even made the landowning class restless.

The old trade and
production centric institutions faced loss of credibility to maintain connect
with the people due to the onslaught of neo-liberal economy. The situation
worsened due to depression in export front. It was tried to assuage the
internal grievances within the Patel community by offering ministerial berths
to many representatives from influential section of Patel community in 1995
Gujrat Cabinet. This effort was further strengthened through 2002 riot and
politics of polarization. But the long journey of neoliberal model of jobless
growth, the urbanization to cater the aspiration of upper classes, the
emergence of cheap army of labour created cracks in the balances of status quo,
changed the dynamics of caste-community aspirations. This internal chemistry
within the Patel community led the Patels to join hands with Non-Patels OBCs
and the Dalits and to launch the reservation movement by shifting away from
their erstwhile anti-reservation stance. The emergence of Hardik Patel as the
leader of Patels of lower strata reflected this aspiration. BJP, in consonance
with their communal politics and neoliberal economic policy, had no other option
but to obviate this new class dimension with repressive measures. The
repressive measures of Gujrat Government had strengthened their resolve to be
uncompromising and this further alienated the Patels from BJP’s fold. The
rebellion against the status quo was most evident in the Dalit movement under the
leadership of Jignesh whose appeal for unity to include even the religious minority
was polar opposite to Sangh Parivar’s position. The presence of large number of
working class and their class power enabled Jignesh et el to take the radical
stance, this was not so strong in the case of Hardik – Alpesh phenomena. The
influence of landowners and business class was significant in the mass mobilizations
of Hardik – Alpesh. This class of people was agitated against the BJP because
of the adverse impact of agrarian crisis, demonitisation and GST. But their vacillating
class character finally inclined them towards the leadership of Modi-Shah duo
at the fag end of the electoral campaign on ‘Gujrat Ashmita’ & communal polarization.

Congress was organizationally
in disarray after electoral debacle in 2014 . Through a complex amalgamation, Congress’s
strategy was to articulate the two tendencies marked by the grievance against
the BJP within the ambit of status quo and the rebellion with an inclination to
come out of the status quo. This strategy led Rahul Gandhi to extensively visit
Gujrati temples to attract upper-castes vote base.

A signal of a new
turn in the Indian situation is emanated from the Gujrat election result. It
indicates many future possibilities: a silent shift of popular opinion towards
Congress within the systemic status quo or the emergence of nation-wide
rebellion to break the status quo for systemic change or the defeat of both the
trends ensuring rise of fascism. We will wait for the nation-wide rebellion to
bombard the status quo for systemic change under the active participation of
revolutionary forces.